Rise of killer dogs in region of India blamed on politics
KHAIRABAD, India — On a recent evening just a few minutes before the sun went down, Sahreen Bano, a 10-year-old girl, walked into a sugar cane field to urinate before going to bed. A pack of wild dogs was waiting for her.
The dogs formed a tight ring and then closed in, pulling her down as one dog’s teeth sank into her neck. She screamed. Nearby farmers dashed in as fast as they could, rocks, sticks and hoes in their hands, yelling at the top of their lungs.
Sahreen now lies on a hospital cot, a brown, a bandage wrapped around her neck, eyes fluttering, most likely out of danger.
But the attack on Sahreen was not an isolated event. At least 14 children have been mauled to death by dog packs around Khairabad in recent months.
Khairabad is one of those little towns, off a highway in northern India, that prosperity and hope seem to have skipped over. The houses are small and smothered in dust; the villagers thin and poor. Most are farmers, many are Muslim, and on this terrifying dog menace, they blame politicians — specifically the Hinduright politicians whose zeal to protect cows, they say, may have created killer dogs.
Last year, a new Hindu-right government, led by Yogi Adityanath, a monk who is one of India’s most divisive figures, was swept into power in this state, Uttar Pradesh. Adityanath built his career by pushing a Hindu-supremacist agenda and demonizing Muslims.
One of the first things he did as Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister was shut down most of the state’s slaughterhouses, scores of them.
The stated reason was that many were operating illegally. But residents are convinced that the yogi and others in his political party wanted to wipe out the meat industry in order to protect cows, a sacred animal in Hinduism. That many Muslims had been employed in the meat industry may also have been attractive to him and to some of his Hindu-supremacist followers.
But another consequence was the stray dogs. And nothing — not increased police patrols, high-level visits, a surveillance drone or a dog vigilante squad that employs macabre tactics — has been able to stop the attacks.
School attendance is dropping. Khairabad’s farmers are terrified to linger in their fields, especially at night. Last weekend, wild dogs struck again, attacking five people.
Khairabad, like just about any other Indian village, has a lot of strays. Many used to survive off scraps from the slaughterhouse, and after it was abruptly shut down, villagers and veterinarians said, some of the strays might have gone mad with hunger.
“Because these dogs are getting less food, they move toward the neighborhoods in search of food,” said Dr. R.K. Singh, director of the Indian Veterinary Research Institute. “That is leading to intense human animal interaction.” Children, he said, were “a soft target.”
Adityanath’s government is prickly when asked about Khairabad’s dog menace, denying that the closure of the slaughterhouse had anything to do with it.
“Why would the dogs of only Khairabad turn into man eaters when slaughterhouses have been shut down all over?” said Awadhesh Kumar Yadav, an urban development officer.
That remains a mystery, though veterinarians said dog attacks were happening in other areas as well.
The forensics here in Khairabad tell their own story. Pictures of mauled children reveal that the dogs clamped down on their throats, the way a leopard or a lion takes down its prey. Some of the children had parts of their legs and arms chewed off.
A few adults have been attacked as well, but none killed.